My mother's only sister and her husband were married for over 60 years. Both lived until their upper-80's. Aunt Eloise died first, leaving Uncle Carroll Clay Lee as an unlikely widower.
"Refined" is not how anyone would have described Uncle Carroll. Although he was wonderfully hospitable and loved to have company and was a fine conversationalist, in ordinary affairs he was gruff to the point of abruptness. One would hardly have imagined him as being susceptible to the more tender emotions of life. However, after Aunt Eloise had died, my parents and I once visited him in his home. The family had hired a housekeeper to look after him during the days. She told us that she would sometimes observe him sitting alone, just staring, with tears running down his cheeks as he remembered his wife.
One just never knows what goes on inside a man, even an old man - even a gruff old man.
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